


under the blue

by ThatAloneOne



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Blanket Permission, F/F, Pirate AU, Space Pirates AU, hints of the mirrorverse but it's just set dressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-04 06:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14587350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: Michael had taken to piracy to escape Starfleet. Tilly stows away. Together, they just might find happiness in the new Earth's purple seas.





	under the blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pretentiousashell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pretentiousashell/gifts).



> For pretentiousashell, who survived exams. Nice.

It was almost amusing how easy it was to slip away into the sea.

Starfleet watched activity on land, and they watched activity past the stars, but they didn’t quite seem to remember that the planet they had co-opted was sixty-seven percent ocean. That much water was that many chances to hide. To wait. To save.

Michael’s ship was old, museum bound before Michael had set it to sailing. Even so, it was a second home to her. She knew which planks creaked, what the burn of rough ropes wrapped against her skin felt like. She knew what the sea looked like before a storm, and she knew how to navigate the towering ocean when it tried to envelop her.

Wood kept her afloat, an engineering marvel from days long past. The only modern amenities onboard were weapons and a tiny, solar-powered replicator. It made water and simple foods, enough nutrients to keep Michael climbing to the crows nest, bobbing above the churning sea. The world looked so small from up there, like she could reach out and swallow it whole.

The food was… odd, but she was used to it by now. The replicator technology was from the planet’s native inhabitants, so it had their native flavours just like their water had its own special hue. Michael wondered what sailing would have been like on Earth, back when the waters were clear instead of black. The waters of Trill, New Earth, were purple, soft and soothing and bright as amethyst where they met the horizon. This far out, the horizon bent in a shining line, the world rounding out the same way it would from space.

She would make it back to space, one day. Another year, perhaps. Piracy was lucrative, but not consistent.

In the meantime, the capital Mak’ala was Michael’s next port. There, the native Trill lived in the slums. They didn’t seem to mind living in the caves. In the ‘Fleet, an admiral had told her it was because they’d evolved in the caves and it was their true, filthy home.

Michael didn’t think that. She thought there was something else in the caves, something that the Trill didn’t want found.

She knew it wasn’t her place to find it, either. That was why she and the Trill got along so well.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Michael arrived in the cove just past midnight, the cool wind bobbing the hull of the _Enterprise_ across the blue sand. The docks were monitored, even at night, so this natural dip in the cliffs was as good a place as any for her to meet with the Mak’ala rebel group.

This time, unloading was quick work because she had help. A woman helped Michael unload her supplies — boxes and boxes of strange food that her scanner had told her was inedible to humanoids.

The last of the transaction took place at the base of the cliff, with teams taking the merchandise deeper into the twining cave system. Michael watched them move, their necks bent with strain, shirts slipping, revealing long lines of spots. It was beautiful: art, of a kind. Art splashed on them by Trill’s purple seas.

Michael didn’t think there was anything of Earth about her besides her name. It had been a long time since humans moved to the stars, leaving a burnt out planet in their wake.

The woman who had helped Michael unload found her just as she was about to leave. “Emony,” the woman introduced herself. She was tiny, built with efficiency and a fair amount of vivacity. Tiny wildflowers were woven into her hair, a cross between Earth roses and something alien. They glowered faintly in the light of the moons. “Emony Dax. I appreciate you taking the time out to do a shipment instead of your ah, usual business.”

Michael managed a smile. The sea whispered against the shore, calling her back home. “It was kind of you to pay me so well for a shipment instead of demanding precision piracy."

Emony made a face. Her spots flattened against her eyebrows, tilting them wildly. “Funnily enough, it’s difficult to find trustworthy humans with boats, and with all the regulations in place to keep us in the caves-“ she waved a hand. The flowers fluttered in her hair, a petal coming loose. “It doesn’t matter! Thank you again.”

“Always,” Michael told her, and struck out through the waves back to the ship’s ladder. The smell of the flowers lingered hours longer, long past when the shore was but a memory of a horizon.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It took a few days for Michael to notice that there was someone else onboard.

There were only small hints, at first. She dismissed the tangled rigging as the wind, the spilled water on the deck as a rogue wave on an otherwise calm day.

Then some of the blueberries went missing from the barrel.

Michael hadn’t expected to be scraping the bottom of the barrel so literally so soon. She’d been lucky to find the berries on a ship she’d raided a half month ago, locked tight in stasis for transport. It was a delicacy — fresh Earth fruit was impossible to find even on land here, let alone on the open ocean.

She popped a fruit into her mouth, exhaustion prickling against her skin. There were blue skies drifting at the horizon, clouds gathering in a storm. Michael didn’t want to have to deal with a stowaway. She’d had one before — a petty criminal who thought an outcast would be easy to handle.

She still hadn’t decided if she regretted throwing him over the rail a half-mile out to sea.

Michael started above decks, combing each inch of the planks for signs of habitation. Then she moved below decks, poking her head into empty storage rooms.

Down in the room full of old papers and bilge water, Michael found her stowaway.

“You found me!” The woman scrambled upright, her curls disheveled from sleep. It half looked like her hair had captured a wildfire. “Sorry! I meant to introduce myself once we got out into open ocean and you couldn't dump me — well, at least I hoped you wouldn’t? But then I got nervous!”

She offered a hand, painfully, innocently human. “My name’s Sylvia Tilly. What’s yours?”

Michael stared at Tilly’s hand, then back at the sleeping nook she had carved into the old ship manifests and crates. “Michael."

Tilly’s hand lowered to her side, taking the hint. “That’s funny. The only other female Michael I ever heard of was Michael Burnham, the mutineer.” Tilly laughed, the sound as nervous as the rest of her. “You’re not her, are you?”

Michael just blinked.

Tilly’s eyes went wide. “Are you?” She gulped. “I mean, you are! That’s cool? That’s good! We’re pretty similar then huh? I mean, technically I’m just a runaway and you’re a mutineer and you’re more extreme I guess but it means you know what you’re doing right? I-“

“I’m that Michael, yes.” Michael told Tilly, cutting her off. Usually Michael would never do that, but it seemed a mercy in this situation.

“Oh.” Tilly said. “That’s so fucking cool!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The whole stowaway situation was surprisingly easy to sort out. Tilly didn’t want to cause any trouble, steal any of her things, or get in her way. On the contrary: she seemed to need to make herself useful. Michael couldn’t go anywhere on the ship without Tilly following, asking for an explanation.

Though she’d been educated in the finest subjects Starfleet had to offer, apparently none of it had included how to operate a vintage sailing ship.

As the days passed, Michael became impressed with how quickly Tilly was learning. Instead of getting underfoot, Tilly had started helping. Tasks aboard ship were suddenly complete. The replicator had been programmed to create something that was nearly coffee.

It was… nice.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
They lay on the deck one night and watched the stars shine against the plum sky.  
  
“I joined because it was the best place to explore theoretical engineering.” Tilly ran her thumb across the smooth planks of the deck, close enough to Michael’s hand she could feel the warmth. “The civilian science sector has been strangled this past decade. And I want to study! I want to _learn_!”  
  
Michael hummed in sympathy. “I joined because the Vulcan Science Academy refused to admit me or my brothers.” She stared at the familiar stars above, feeling the twinge of an old wound. “They don’t trust humans and our family was far too human.”  
  
“I wouldn’t trust us either,” Tilly said sadly.  
  
Michael lay silent. Then, “I trust _you_ ,” she said, soft as the passing wind.  
  
In the dark, Tilly found her hand and squeezed.

 

 

* * *

 

  
  
With two sets of hands working the ship, the daily ship’s chores got done just a little past noon. That meant that for the first time in over a year, Michael had extended amounts of free time.

When she thought about it, she realized it might have been the first time in her life. Back on Vulcan, her time was always taken up with reading, studying, becoming better at one thing or another. Every moment had a purpose, whether that be spending time with another person to cultivate a relationship or cramming more information into her brain until it ached.

Here, in the middle of the ocean, with the scanner showing the nearest ship to be weeks away, Michael was forced to… just _exist_.

It was strange. She hadn’t decided yet if it was good.  
  
The second week into their journey, Tilly took some spare ropes and planks from the _Enterprise’s_ storeroom and cobbled together a laddered platform that hung above the water. They could fish. They could get a break from the baking sun without ducking back inside and choking themselves on the smell of hard work and sodden wood.  Most importantly, according to Tilly, they could dangle their feet in the water or go for a swim. Tilly swam like a skutfish, darting through the water with ease and barely coming up for air. Michael watched, bemused, each time.  
  
After Michael scanned the ocean to her satisfaction and determined that there weren’t any sea creatures waiting below for a snack, she let Tilly convince her to dip her feet in the waves.

In truth, Michael was starting to learn how to enjoy the sea. 

The sun sparkled off the water like shattered glass. Tilly kicked at it, sheltered in the shade cast off the _Enterprise_ . “Have you tasted the water?”  
  
Michael stared. “…no,” she said finally. “It’s saltwater, and contains a chemical makeup that has the potential to interfere with human biology.”  
  
Tilly waved a hand. She was content to sit on the platform for once, instead of leaping off the edge into the fathomless ocean below. “I’m not saying drink down the whole ocean! I meant just a sip.” Her eyes fastened on Michael’s lips. “A taste."  
  
Michael breathed a laugh, leaning back on her hands, a splinter digging its way into her palm. “I have not considered _tasting_ the sea, no, Sylvia.”  
  
The other girl frowned. “Tilly. Sylvia sounds like… Just Tilly is fine.”  
  
“Tilly,” Michael corrected. Waves smacked gently against the bottom of the plank, sending sea spray up around them. It was cool on her hands. “No, I haven’t tried to taste the sea.”  
  
Tilly nodded, as if in agreement, then leant down off the platform, nearly tipping herself into the water. When she straightened, she had a handful of water cupped in her palm. “Here,” she said, offering it to Michael. “Taste.”  
  
Michael sipped the water off Tilly’s hand. There was sweet with the salt, like air after a rain.  
  
Tilly’s lips tasted about the same, but warm, and soft where the water had slipped away cold.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the Enterprise, Tilly and Michael weathered a storm strapped to the rigging and wheel, sneaking up on the _Discovery_ undetected. The captain, an unpleasant dark-haired and dark-worded man, went overboard in the attempt.  
  
Everyone agreed it was no great tragedy.

The crew, kind now that they’d been freed from their overlord, agreed that they’d been viciously robbed and handed over more than half of their supplies. Tilly cooed over a trunk of technology and Michael watched, delighted that she was.    
  
Back aboard the _Enterprise_ , laden with goods from bow to stern, they watched the clear skies break into sunlit violet bars, the storm clearing like a breath released.  
  
“Do you think the ocean would taste different, with that man in it?” Tilly mused.  
  
Michael laughed and wound her hands through Tilly’s fire hair. “I think I’d rather taste you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the [skutfish](http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Skutfish) is for real. I take great pleasure in using real animals from real Star Trek because I'm a nerd. So sue me.
> 
> If you're like "hey aether what's with the things hiding in the caves stuff", I have two things to say. First: it's the symbionts, the creatures that bond with the human-like Trill to form a joined being that's like four hundred and also twenty years old. Second, you should definitely watch Deep Space Nine. 
> 
> If you _have_ watched DS9, you should be peering at me and looking kind of exasperated as you say, "was a cameo from one of Dax's former hosts really necessary?" Yes. Yes it was. You're welcome.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at writerproblem193


End file.
